Mary Anna Needell (née Lupton, 1830–1922), was a popular English novelist, who usually wrote as Mrs. J. H. Needell. She was born at

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, Kent, now divided between the London boroughs of

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and

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. Little has been discovered about her personal background or life.John Sutherland: ''Longman Companion to Victorian Literature'', 2nd e. (Abingdon, Oxon./New York: Routledge, 2009), p. 463.
Retrieved 2 March 2015.
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Married life

Mary Anna Lupton's father was John Lupton, described on her marriage certificate as a merchant. She was married at

All Hallows, Bread Street All Hallows Bread Street was a parish church in the Bread Street ward of the City of London, England. It stood on the east side of Bread Street, on the corner with Watling Street. First mentioned in the 13th century, the church was destroyed in ...

on 4 May 1854 to John Hodder Needell (

Netherbury Netherbury is a village and civil parish in the English county of Dorset. It lies within the Dorset Council administrative area, by the small River Brit, south of Beaminster and north of Bridport. The A3066 road connecting those towns lies 0. ...

Dorset Dorset ( ; archaically: Dorsetshire , ) is a county in South West England on the English Channel coast. The ceremonial county comprises the unitary authority areas of Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole and Dorset (unitary authority), Dors ...

, 16 September 1814 –

Beaminster Beaminster ( ) is a town and civil parish in Dorset, England, situated in the Dorset Council administrative area approximately northwest of the county town Dorchester. It is sited in a bowl-shaped valley near the source of the small River Br ...

, July 1881) of Allington, Dorset, son of Thomas Wallace Needell, also described as a merchant. J. H. Needell's business affairs seem to have been sporadic and unsuccessful. His calico printing and warehousing partnership with a certain William Gregory Langdon in London,

Cheapside Cheapside is a street in the City of London, the historic and modern financial centre of London, which forms part of the A40 London to Fishguard road. It links St. Martin's Le Grand with Poultry. Near its eastern end at Bank junction, where ...

, is known to have ended in February 1848. He was involved in litigation with the Western Bank of Scotland over the insolvent firm of John Monteith and Co., in which he claimed to have retired as a partner in 1855, having "moved to the country" in 1852. The Needells had a son, also called John Hodder Needell, and daughters called Flora Nicholetts, Kate, Beatrice and Marian. The last may be the same as a Mary Ann icNeedell, born in 1855. The family was living at

, Dorset at the time of the 1881 census. Mary Anna Needell's husband died at Beaminster and was buried at Allington.

Writings

In a ''

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'' entry in 1907, Mrs Needle stated she was "a student and writer up to the period of marriage; during a long married life of engrossing claims my literary production was suspended, to be resumed in 1881," i. e. after her husband's death. Needell wrote at least twelve novels. They include ''Catherine Irving'' (anonymously, 1855), ''Stephen Ellicott's Daughter'' (c. 1880), ''Julian Karslake's Secret''* (1881), ''Lucia, Hugh, and Another''* (1884), also published in the United States and telling of "an 'ideal marriage' which becomes a painful trap".''The Feminist Companion to Literature in English'', Virginia Blain, Patricia Clements and Isobel Grundy, eds (London, Batsford, 1990), p. 789. . ''The Story of Philip Methuen'' (1886), said to be her most popular work, was followed by ''Noel Chetwynd's Fall'' (1888) and then ''Unequally Yoked'' (1891), about the marriage of a parson to a woman "beneath him" – called "a very inferior and somewhat unpleasing tale" by '' The Athenaeum'', but noted in recent times as featuring "a slum girl who grows in stature to match er husband'sspirit." Later came ''Passing the Love of Women''* (1892), ''The Vengeance of James Vansittart'' (1895), ''The Honour of Vivien Bruce'' (1899) and ''Unstable as Water'' (1902). ''Ada Gresham. An Autobiography'' (1853) also appears to be fictional. It has "an odd unlikeable heroine and is interesting on birth and supporting a child alone." Many novels Needell wrote after her husband's death reappeared, also in America.For example, see the advertisement for volumes of Harper's Franklin Square Library in ''The Methodist Quarterly Review'' Vol. 66, p. 796
Retrieved 8 March 2015.
/ref> Some critics have noted influence from

Charlotte Brontë Charlotte Brontë (, commonly ; 21 April 1816 – 31 March 1855) was an English novelist and poet, the eldest of the three Brontë sisters who survived into adulthood and whose novels became classics of English literature. She enlisted i ...

. In addition, Needell contributed several short stories in periodicals and annuals. She is not thought to have published anything substantial after 1902.

References

External links

*
Golden Gale
(ten of her twelve novels) {{DEFAULTSORT:Needell, Mary Anna 1830 births 1922 deaths 19th-century English women writers 19th-century English novelists English women novelists Writers from London Writers from Dorset Pseudonymous women writers 19th-century pseudonymous writers